All Together Dead

where there’s real money.
    I shrugged. I like where I live, I said.
    Then we both became aware that our vampire employers were watching our silent exchange. Our faces were changing expression, I guess, like faces do during a conversation…except our conversation had been silent.
    “Excuse me,” I said. “I didn’t mean to be rude. I just don’t see people like me very often, and it’s kind of a treat to talk to another telepath. I beg your pardon, ma’am, sir.”
    “I could almost hear it,” Sophie-Anne marveled. “Stan, he has been very useful?” Sophie-Anne could talk to her own children mentally, but it must be as rare an ability among vampires as it was among people.
    “Very useful,” Stan confirmed. “The day that your Sookie brought him to my attention was a very good day for me. He knows when the humans are lying; he knows what their ulterior motives are. It’s wonderful insight.”
    I looked at Barry, wondering if he ever thought of himself as a traitor to humankind or just as a vendor supplying a needed good. He met my eyes, his own face hard. Sure, he was conflicted about serving a vampire, revealing human secrets to his employer. I struggled with that idea myself from time to time.
    “Hmmm. Sookie only works for me on occasion.” Sophie-Anne was staring at me, and if I could characterize her smooth face, I would say she was thoughtful. Andre had something going on behind his pink-tinged teenage facade, and it was something I had better watch out for. He wasn’t just thoughtful, he was interested; engaged, for want of a better description.
    “Bill brought her to Dallas,” Stan observed, not quite asking a question.
    “He was her protector at the time,” Sophie-Anne said.
    A brief silence. Barry leered at me hopefully, and I gave him an in-your-dreams look. Actually, I felt like hugging him, since that little exchange broke up the silence into something I could handle.
    “Do you really need Barry and me here, since we’re the only humans, and it might not be so productive if we just sat around and read each other’s minds?”
    Joseph Velasquez actually smiled before he could stop himself.
    After a silent moment, Sophie-Anne nodded, and then Stan. Queen Sophie and King Stan, I reminded myself. Barry bowed in a practiced way, and I felt like sticking out my tongue at him. I did a sort of bob and then scuttled out of the suite. Sigebert eyed us with a questioning face. “The queen, she not need you?” he asked.
    “Not right now,” I said. I tapped a pager that Andre had handed me at the last minute. “The pager will vibrate if she needs me,” I said.
    Sigebert eyed the device mistrustfully. “I think it would be better if you just stayed here,” he said.
    “The queen, she says I can go,” I told him.
    And off I went, Barry trailing along behind me. We took the elevator down to the lobby, where we found a secluded corner where no one could sneak up on us to eavesdrop.
    I’d never conversed with someone entirely in my head, and neither had Barry, so we played around with that for a while. Barry would tell me the story of his life while I tried to block out all the other brains around me; then I’d try to listen to everyone else and to Barry.
    This was actually a lot of fun.
    Barry turned out to be better than I was at picking out who was thinking what in a crowd. I was a bit better at hearing nuance and detail, not always easy to pick up in thoughts. But we had some common ground.
    We agreed on who the best broadcasters in the room were; that is, our “hearing” was the same. He would point at someone (in this case it was my roommate, Carla) and we would both listen to her thoughts, then rate them on a scale of one to five, five being the loudest, clearest broadcast. Carla was a three. After that agreement, we rated other people, and we found ourselves reacting almost as one over that.
    Okay, this was interesting.
    Let’s try touching, I suggested.
    Barry didn’t even leer. He was into this, too. Without further ado, he took my hand, and we faced in nearly opposite directions.
    The voices came in so clearly, it was like having a full-voice conversation with everyone in the room, all at once. Like pumping up the volume on a DVD, with the treble and bass perfectly balanced. It was elating and terrifying, all at once. Though I was facing away from the reception desk, I clearly heard a woman inquiring about the arrival of the Louisiana vamps. I caught my own image in the